Universities are projecting a ~20% decline in their total addressable market [1] starting about 10 years from now. Talk with any decision maker at a tuition-dependent institution for more than 10 minutes and they'll bring up this topic.

Many of the USA's colleges and universities cannot afford a 20% decline in tuition dollars. They will collapse under the weight of fixed costs and higher unit costs, even with substantial cuts to faculty and staff. The only path toward survival for many of these institutions is to increase the size of the pie, and the WASP demographic is saturated.

In Tech, DEI is an HR and Recruiting department. In Higher Ed, DEI is also -- primarily, even -- a sales and marketing department. An existentially important one. I've heard a few different college presidents discuss it very explicitly in those terms.

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[1] https://www.insidehighered.com/digital-learning/blogs/online...